Posted by Rob J in Questions for candidates - all candidates
I recently returned to the club after a good period of being away. After starting a new job during lockdown (here in the UK) I found that coming in after work I just don’t feel I have the creativity required to RP very successfully (with apologies to Adam and Kate about that). However I enjoyed this club so much when I was RPing a few years ago and still want to support it in some way. This leads on to my questions ( which I am aware have probably been asked at some point but I’m asking again)

1 - Do you think this is a large issue in the club, with people finding that they feel they can’t “keep up” with the players who are very active and have been on ships for a long time and have a good rhythm going. what would/could you do about this?

I think this is definitely an issue and one I’ve struggled with myself. A few times, I’ve been on a “regular” ship that produces way more posts than even a daily ship. We’ve discussed a way to evaluate posting activity on a ship and I think this is something that needs to continue to be discussed moving forward.

2 - What aspects of the club are already in place or would you put in place so that these players could get themselves back into the club to bring up (from a brief look) some lacking numbers of new players

The Personnel Department is always there to help returning members find an Ensign-level JO spot. :) That’s personally the route I took upon returning and it worked well to get my feet wet again in RP and the PDept used their placement policies to ensure I went to a ship that was in need.

3 - What do you think are the main reasons people leave the club, how might you want to keep them in

I think that your point in #1 is definitely relevant here – if someone is feeling like there isn’t enough activity or there is too much activity, I hope that we can reach out to the person and see what we can do to solve that. This has been an issue on the Challenger with new members and the high activity level and, frequently, this conversation opens the door to provide strategies like easily finding your posts/threads instead of potentially losing a new member.

4 - Do you think that it is possible to entice new players. The club has been around for nearly 30 years and the problems have always seemed to be there, granted membership has had highs and lows, how do YOU think that you can make that difference in this one term that so many presidents have not been able to do. (just to note I am not calling out the failings of any presidents, I don’t think any presidents have failed in this fact but it can be seen that there have been several terms where numbers have dropped, ships have had to be decommissioned etc)

I think that the best thing we can do is make STF a solid community with unique offerings and, then, word of mouth becomes our friend. Our CMM has done a fantastic job at getting us involved with the RP scene and I look forward to continuing STF’s presence there. The simple fact is that we don’t necessarily need to have X members to survive. STF could be an amazing, long-lasting club with 50 dedicated, enthused members (and I’d rather have that than 200+ disheartened, discouraged ones). We just need to make sure that we are in the state to provide an amazing experience to those 50 members.

*and now some extra questions*

5 - what do you think the day to day job of a president would be, what do you think you will be doing mostly as president

Chatting and hanging out. This kind of informal discussion is how the President learns about what’s going on in the club and where there might be something going wrong before it actually goes wrong. While I’ve been having to focus a lot of my Discord time on supporting my Challenger staff (the number of times I’ve woken up to hundreds of notifications…), I always try as VP to be available to anyone who might want a sounding board and I try to reach out if it looks like someone is feeling a little down about something.

6 - If you won $1000 (or equivalent) what would you spend it on.

I have no idea… I’d probably buy people gifts because I’m obnoxious like that and love finding the perfect thing people didn’t know they needed.

7 - What is your favourite small animal covered in fur with a long tail. who climb trees and feed on nuts and seeds.

A koala.

8 - Do you already have thoughts on who you would bring into gov positions, how will you decide who to bring in and why

Rob and I haven’t jumped ahead to these discussions yet. We’d prefer to focus on presenting a plan and addressing feedback and questions for now before getting ahead of ourselves. We’re looking forward to seeing what applications come in.

9 - In all honesty do you think there is a gov position/department that needs a reshuffle or taking a good look at

We don’t see anything in particular that we feel the need to shake up. We’re looking forward to seeing what applications come in.

10 - You have 3 wishes, what do you wish for

1) A long nap
2) Another bourbon
3) Ice cream

11 - what do you think was the worst thing that has happened in the history of the club (you don’t have to name names etc just a situation) and how would you you have dealt with it/deal with it if it happened again

Thank you

RobJ

The AJJE split. I didn’t have a role to have an effect in that, but I think that the discontent these members felt could have been handled much earlier on in the process before it got to the extent of splitting off to form a new club.

• Sarah